Weekly soccer column: Timing may be right for Buddle, Gomez

Included in the 2010 U.S. men's national team media guide are pictures and biographies of 32 players considered frontrunners to make the World Cup squad.

Among the likes of Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey is a player many Americans probably have never heard of and even fewer seen play: Jermaine Jones.

Jones, 28, the son of a German mother and American father, was a fixture in midfield for top Bundesliga team Schalke 04 before getting injured last year. He has made three appearances for the German national team.

Yet a recent change in FIFA rules made Jones eligible to play for the U.S.

While injury has prevented Jones from making his U.S. debut, that he's accorded similar status in the media guide next to stars like Donovan is a measure not only of how highly regarded Jones and the league he plays in is, but also the lack of depth in the American player pool.

Enter Galaxy striker Edson Buddle and former Galaxy forward Herculez Gomez, now plying his trade for Puebla in Mexico.

Buddle's lone U.S. appearance was as a second-half substitute in 2003, when he played all of 11 minutes. Gomez played two games and a combined 67 minutes three years ago.

It probably goes without saying neither appears in this year's U.S. media guide. But both are making a strong, if belated, case for inclusion on Coach Bob Bradley's World Cup squad.

Buddle, 28, is on a tear the likes MLS has never seen in scoring a league-record seven goals in just four games to start the season. On Saturday, he played the role of accomplished international class striker perfectly by confidently dispatching defending MLS champion Real Salt Lake with two fine goals in what was his third consecutive two-goal game.

"I don't know why, at least, he doesn't get an opportunity," said Real Salt Lake coach Jason Kreis, himself a top-notch striker in his playing days.

"This is the highest level (of soccer) in our country, and if you're on form and certainly the type of tear he is (on), I think you have to kind of force hands at that point. But again, it's not my decision to make."

Gomez, 28, has been firing away in similar fashion. He scored twice for Puebla in last weekend's 4-1 victory over Cruz Azul to take his remarkable tally to 10 goals in 13 appearances, with several of those as a substitute. He leads the league in scoring with CD Guadalajara sensation Javier Hernandez, who single-handedly has sent Mexico's World Cup prospects soaring. And Hernandez joins England's famed Manchester United next season.

It seems hard to imagine an American leading the Mexican league in scoring and another in the richest vein of scoring form the domestic league has seen in its 15 years of existence not having a shot at making the U.S. World Cup squad.

This, especially given injury and fitness issues surrounding the likes of Charlie Davies and Brian Ching. Jozy Altidore aside, no other striker is assured of a roster spot.

Small wonder, then, that Chicago Fire striker Brian McBride, 37 years old and four years removed from his last national team appearance, is being talked up in some quarters as a reliable, emergency replacement.

Questions surround the sudden re-emergence of Buddle and Gomez.

Buddle, on the ultimate streak of a streaky career, scored 15 goals in 2008, but plagued by injuries last year finished with just five.

Gomez's career was fading away in MLS with Kansas City before he left for Mexico. He never came close to duplicating the 11 goals he scored in his breakout 2005 season with the Galaxy before this year.

Can these two proven inconsistent scorers in MLS suddenly contribute goals at the international level, another step up entirely, especially given their lack of playing time with the rest of the roster (although Donovan has supplied assists on four of Buddle's goals)?

Players have come out of nowhere before to claim a World Cup spot. Think defender David Regis in 2002.

Donovan believes that could happen again.

"Three times I've been through this (World Cup) cycle and you have guys you count on and depend on, but then you have moments where you have players that come into form at the right time," he said. "I always say you play the guy that's playing the best at the time, period.

"You have your guys you rely on, but if guys are playing that way, then those are the guys you want on the field for you."

It's unknown whether Bradley is thinking along the same lines as Donovan and Kreis. He must submit a 30-man preliminary World Cup roster to FIFA by May 11. The U.S. camp opens May 15 ahead of games May 25 against the Czech Republic in East Hartford, Conn., and May 29 against Turkey in Philadelphia. The final 23-player roster is due to FIFA by June 1.

Buddle and Gomez are longshots to be sure. But then so is Jones, and look at the visibility and respect he was accorded without playing a game for the U.S.